


turbulence

by orphan_account



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:14:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26581204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “I need you to check my belt. Third pocket from the left.”“What would be possibly be useful that - this is an antidote. Drake -"“Give yourself the whole dose. Then get out.Run.”
Relationships: Tim Drake & Damian Wayne
Comments: 4
Kudos: 70





	turbulence

_turbulence (n.)_

1\. violent or unsteady movement of air or water, or of some other fluid.

2\. conflict; confusion.

* * *

It starts like this:

Two weeks ago. A case report. A dangerous new toxin. 

Drake running compounds in the computer. Sighing when it comes up red.

Patrol. Shipments at the docks. Pairing up.

Bickering. Henchmen. Snapped bones. Bruises. Chloroform. Awaking. Warehouse. Second floor. A bomb. Knots around their wrists. The Joker’s voice. Taunts. 

Poison in their systems. Two minutes till their bodies start shutting down. Two and a half till they blow up. Unknotting the knots in half a minute, because it’s as natural as breathing. 

It starts like this: 

“I need you to check my belt. Third pocket from the left.”

“What would be possibly be useful that - this is an antidote. Drake -”

“Give yourself the whole dose. Then get out. _Run.”_

“How did you -”

“It was last-minute - I didn’t even know if - Damian, please -”

“Drake, you’re being ridiculous, you idiot -”

“There’s not enough for both of us. There’s no point in dragging me with you - the toxin works too fast. I’ve looked at the other toxicology reports. I’ll be dead - literally dead weight. Now take the dose.”

It starts like this:

Damian stares at Drake - Timothy - Tim. 

He says, voice cracking in all the wrong places, “No, Father will -”

And then Timothy snaps, “He won’t get through you dying again, Damian. You don’t get to die again. _I won’t let it_.” 

Damian looks at him and he cannot breathe. More likely, it is this toxin taking hold of his body. Not the fact that Timothy Drake is dying right in front of him, but his voice is telling Damian to live. The same person who Damian had left for dead years ago, when they first met. Rejecting a handshake for a birthright. 

Damian blinks.

His eyes are stinging. 

His arms ache. 

“I’m not - “ he snarls, shoving the syringe back at Timothy. 

“You _are_ ,” Timothy says, sharp. He coughs, scarlet spilling out of his mouth, staining his chin, dripping, dripping, dripping. Red has always tied them together - Richard _(Grayson)_ , _(Jason)_ Todd, _(Stephanie)_ Brown _,_ _(Timothy)_ Drake, and Damian. It is their color. It is the blood they do not allow to be shed on Gotham’s streets. 

“It's ok,” Timothy says, his voice halting. He settles a hand on the back of Damian’s neck, cautious. Their language is sniping, half-sharp words, cold days in the botanicals with a camera and a sketchbook, skittering footsteps in the manor. It evolved from something sharp and acidic and horrible - broken noses and bloody lips.

One minute, twenty five seconds. One minute, twenty four seconds. One minute, twenty three seconds. 

It is not ok. It will never resemble ok, not ever. This, Damian knows. 

Words - three, four, five words, a whole sentence - sit in his throat. Saying them will take longer than the time they have left. But they burn, sharp in his stomach, burning a hole, and Damian selfishly wishes that they could just have more time and why, why, why does it end like _this_ -

He says something that might be a twisted plea, because that is all that he can say -

Damian remembers the next few seconds in sensations. 

A prick, sharp and hot on his arm. 

Timothy’s face, tears streaking under his mask, his hands on Damian’s shoulders, his lips forming _i’m sorry._ Damian doesn’t know what for until he's falling, tumbling out the warehouse's dingy window, a million glass shards in his wake. 

It feels like Damian falls forever. 

The snow crunches under him. 

And then -

Fire. Sound. Ashes. Smoke.

Damian fights for a scream, but the world goes half-bright and then -

They find him like this:

“Fuck, wake up, wake _up_ -”

“Robin, come on, Dami, please -”

Noises shape into voices.

“Come on, we got to - he’s bleeding _,_ ‘wing -”

“I know, I know, I know, Jay - come on D, open your eyes -”

The world is a smudged painting. 

“I hope that sick fuck didn’t do anything to Tim, I swear to god -” 

“O triangulated his tracker, Hood. Cass and Steph are on route, all right? B’s on his way back -”

Wait. That’s not right. 

He remembers Timothy’s arm. Blood weeping from a wound near his elbow. His own arm had been clean. 

He tries to say something, but his throat stings and the noise that arises is a thick, dark rasp. 

“Robin - holy shit, Robin, it’s going to be ok, Dames, just breathe, ok, ok, please -”

Hands, warm on his face. 

He tries to say _the tracker was taken out. Timothy was with me. I know he was._

Then - 

_please, let me have been wrong._

Batman operates on absolutes and logic. He trains all of his sidekicks the same. There is no room for _what if_ or _maybe_ in their line of work. In the League, Damian was taught through strict codes, discipline, harsh looks, and scars that he still has. There was no room for doubt. There is still no room for it, as Robin.

But still - 

_Please. Please. Please. Please._

It ends like this:

Damian is lying in the medbay, eyes skyward, feeling nothing, except dull pain slice through his ribs. 

It ends like this:

Father is sitting next to him, eyes glassy. He does not look at Damian. 

It ends like this:

Damian cracks, a hairline fracture in this sea of wrongness, a single ripple. There are long-dried tears on his cheeks - he has no more. He makes a sound free from anything he has ever been taught and tangled in that sound is, “I’m sorry.” 

Because this day, this night, it will follow him around like a shadow. It will be the stranger in his dreams that he calls a stranger because approaching it means remembering Timothy's voice as he had told Damian to run - something that Damian will not be able to figure out for years. Blame is a torch in their family, in Gotham, licking at the heels of anyone who comes near - from Batman to the Joker to Todd to Grandfather and so on in a crazed cycle. It seems fitting that he should get his turn. But the difference is Damian will keep it for himself. He will cradle the guilt inside him every time he goes out, whoever he may be. He will not lay himself bare after he heals up. 

But now, he cracks. 

He has no more tears. 

It ends like this:

Father will look at him and say nothing. But he will come over to Damian and hold him in his arms, as if Damian had brought Timothy with him, alive and well, still spleenless. As if Damian had not succumbed. As if Damian had taken Timothy's hand from the start. As if Damian had done something. 

He will hold Damian and Damian will tell himself to fight against it, because Timothy is a cooling body on Leslie Thompkins' table, Damian’s heart is still beating, and nothing will ever fix it.

But in this moment, Father holds Damian like he is the last thing in the whole world, and then his father, who is a wall, a fortress, shakes like an earthquake, falling apart. The sounds that come out of him sound like a great monster, ripping itself out of him for the first -

No, Damian thinks. It is not the first. 

There is -

Pearls. 

A crowbar.

Black Mask. 

A sword plunged deep into a chest. 

He wonders if that great monster is inside him as well: if it is as part of him as his father’s blue eyes and his mother’s chin. 

He wonders how many times Father will restitch himself. Wonders how many times the great monster will rip itself out of his father’s spine before there is nothing left. Wonders if one day, it will erupt from him, and he will be gone. 


End file.
